Last Wednesday night I was at a meeting where Todd Bentley was speaking. He was challenging us and asking "Are you desperate for God?" While it's all too easy in these passionate meetings to shout out "Yes!" I took a moment to step back from the moment to consider whether I am in fact desperate for God.
I came to a disappointing conclusion that I'm not in fact as desperate as I would like to think I am. I want more of God. I would like to be living a more out-there crazy life on the edge. The truth is, though, that I'm somewhat happy where I am just now. If I was truly desperate, I would be crying out to God all the time, spending hours seeking him and enjoying his presence. I'm not doing that, though. I'm plodding along, working away but not really in a place of desparation.
God, make me discontented with my current situation. Make me hungrier, craving a deeper experience of you, a closer intimacy with you. I never want today to be the peak of my walk with you. May it be a step up each time, never levelling off or falling. I know there's more than my present experience and I want to pursue it with more enthusiasm than I have been.
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12 comments:
Ken
if there's anything I know about God, he really values honesty. You will find that he honours a heart that is completely his.
hmmm, sounds like doc is confused. We should pray for him. I hear waht your saying Kenny. I asked myself the same Q. Even the fact that your questioning that is really good. I think its real good to ponder such things.
Doc, in answer to your question:
I have seen the lives of people who really seek after God, people who pursue Him. They are able to do the most amazing things like praying for the sick and seeing them healed. My faith isn't a theory. It's proven by the tangiable things that happen. Someone is sick, they are prayed for, they are not sick any more. We as people can't make that happen. It's the power of God being released as he answers our prayers.
I want to pray for the sick and see them healed of all kinds of impossible situations. I know I need to pursue God more but it's easy to get comfortable with life as it is, like not wanting to get out of a warm bed in the morning. But if we all stayed in bed, we'd miss out on so much of life.
Doc, I'd be interested to hear what kind of studies you're referring to that have compared prayer and medication. Prayer isn't an exact science the same way medicine is. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. However, the exciting thing is that there are times when it DOES work.
As for antibiotics working better, I imagine that depends on the type of sickness you're healing. I know a man who was healed of Alzheimer's by prayer at my home church in Glasgow. I have seen a video of a man from Northern Ireland who had sufferred a number of strokes and whose arm and leg were almost useless. He was completely healed right here in Toronto at the church I go to. I know stories of people who have actually grown replacement limbs after being prayed for. I don't think antibiotics would help much for these things.
When I mentioned in my earlier comment that I wanted to see people healed of "impossible situations", these were the kind of things I meant.
Great post ken,
i can definitely relate. much blessing and encouragement on your quest for more of God and a deeper more intimate, more real relationship than you have been experiencing to this point.
Lots o love,
Cho
You know, Doc, maybe I am nuts. Or maybe you just don't want to admit that something happens when people pray and you don't want to live with the implications of that. It can take more faith to believe something isn't true than that it is. Even if I gave you a list of 50 medically confirmed healings, you still would find a reason to doubt what I'm saying. If you saw it with your own eyes, you could still rationalize it away. The fact is, you like the idea of a godless world. There's no-one to answer to. There's nobody to tell you what you can and can't do.
Prayer isn't an exact science because it's us asking God to do something and we don't always get our way. He is not a formula he is a person. The fact that I don't always get what I want doesn't make God any more false than my natural father because he refused me a candy bar at the store.
I really might be nuts. People who believe the impossible, who live for the unrealistic tend to have more interesting lives anyway. You live your life as you see fit, that's totally your choice, but don't even try to convince me that healing prayer doesn't work. I've seen it. I've DONE it. I've prayed for people who have felt better. I notice you don't comment on the two confirmed healings that I mentioned but the one that I have less details on. Interesting.
Ask yourself - aren't you just being exactly the same as the people you despise? You're defending a belief despite the surrounding evidence. You don't believe because you don't want to, nothing more.
Wow. It's nice to know that there are people in this world who feel the way I do. I am crying out that same prayer... Thanks for sharing your heart.
Hey I was thinking about the contradictions we face. We have a need for peace and rest, to "be still and know" He is God, and let Him lead us to the quiet waters of Psalm 23.
Then there is the hope kindled by the promises of God. Jurgan Moltmann said this hope does not produce rest in the heart of man, but is itself the unquiet feeling in man's heart. These promises of God's goodness drive themselves like splinters, Moltmann said, into the flesh of every unfulfilled present. This is what causes us to lay hold of the kingdom of God and allow the King to express Himself in our world, bringing transformation to individuals and society.
There is a time to rest, and be thankful for our health. Then there is the time to wonder about all the countless children who have been maimed in fires and accidents, with no hope of a normal life, assuming they will survive, apart from the supernatural intervention of God. I have seen children on television who are covered with scar tissue from head to toe.
It is disturbing to realise when Peter answered the man begging at the temple gate in Acts 3, he said essentially "...WHAT I HAVE, WHAT I PERSONNALY POSSESS, I AM DECIDING TO GIVE AND SHARE WITH YOU." The crippled beggar was instantly healed through Jesus' name as we know.
How many I have prayed for, and there was no healing. Then once in a while, something cool happens. Ooh, a kid in England had his vision healed? Woo! But that is only a religious monument unless the water is continually stirred.
I guess the truth has to sink in at some point, that we are looking at a world at war. The landscape has suffered a spiritual blitzkrieg, on a scale we can't begin to imagine. Jesus made Himself an enemy of the present, because He came from the future, bringing the powers of a future age with Him. Perhaps our greatest ally is the ability to see the extent to which the present state of the world, natural and spiritual, is a perversion of the purposes of God, lying completely under the power of the evil one. That will give us the courage to rise up against it, to reject it, and overcome.
I just don't understand how you can be so dismissive when there are people who are genuinely different as a result of prayer. These are people whose own communities are amazed at what's happened. I'm not talking about an obscure rumour - it's really happening.
I really think you just don't want to believe that it does happen. You can put it all down to co-incidence or the power of the mind or whatever else you want to but as more and more people are healed, your argument will get less convincing. Nothing silences a critic like a walking miracle.
If you don't want to discuss this any further then I'll drop it. I hope you will one day look at supernatural healing in a more open-minded way, though. I think you're missing out on some good stuff.
Bless you,
- Ken
Hey guys, just wanted to tell you about my own life. Doc, I respect you and I think its great that you are speaking out what you believe in.
I was pretty sure that there was a God, but I thought he was distant and didn't really care. My parents dragged me to church for 16 years before I really knew that God was alive. At first I just felt something different, but could be passed off as just a coincedence. I had a bad crash on my motorcycle and it left my kness destroyed. I lost movement and strength and I couldn't put in a full days work with out terible pain. I was desperate for help, but the doctors could only do so much. The pain was still there. I love sports so this situation was ruining my life. Out of desperation I attended a "God" type healing conferance at Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship. The preacher on stage said that God was healing knees. I didn't know what to expect. Suddenly my legs felt warm. The pain left and I had full range of movement in my knees. I was shocked! To this day my knees are good as new. I'm back on my bike and I've started snowboarding since (which is impossible to do with weak knees). The Doctors said that I would need a knee brace to do anything other then walking, but I've never touched one.
Doc, I realize that you don't know me and for all you know I could be full of crap. But this is my life, and I'm telling you that it really did happen. I want to challenge you on this matter. But first I need to tell you that if you close yourself off to the fact that there is no God, then there probably never will be to you. If I put a apple in front of you but you just kept telling yourself that theres no such thing as apples, then you know what, there wouldn't be an apple in front of you. If you close yourself off to possibilities then there are none.
Here's my challenge. With out closing yourself off to the fact that "there is no higher power in existance", just say this. "God, if you really do exist, prove yourself to me." And thats it. You should have a problem saying this cause if there is no God than nothing will happen and you will only have wasted a breath and a few words. Try it, and wait to see what happens.
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